Another month is almost over and as I pass the time with a Dragon King hunt for the Bloody Shallows, people are eagerly awaiting any news on both the Core game reprints (some of them seem to actually be shipping out as of last week) and the highly anticipated arrival of the Screaming God – as the developing international situation is not helping any shipping lines.
In any case, we are very likely to get some news in regards to both by Tuesday next week – and I am just going to actually say it – I wouldn’t mind if Europe got the new release first for a change (which according to comments made by Team Death on discord could actually be one of the scenarios they are looking at).

Whilst I don’t want to push the current campaign here too far, with the chance of incorporating the Screaming Goat still seemingly available, I have been marathoning other campaigns over the last couple of weeks – including now finishing a PotSun game as well – which was glorious in parts, and pitiful in others.
From only building a Counterweighted Axe in LY01 – which worked out great btw – all the way to only surviving my encounter with the Hand Lvl3 because my final living survivor rolled Flee as a Brain Trauma from taking the Ghost Step brain damage which let him evade the incoming attack that definitely would have killed him – it has been quite the journey.
He didn’t survive the Applause, though.

But enough about other, bygone settlements – today we are hunting a Dragon King Lvl2 for the Bloody Shallows.
With the back-to-back Lvl2 nemesis encounters set to come up over the next 2 Lantern Years, one of which being the Pariah – we desperately need to finish at least 1 of these armor sets! And as Dragon Armor provides such a reliable boost to a survivor’s offence via Leap (+2ACC & +5STR) we should be looking at this set in particular.

***

A lot about this Lantern Year was in a state of flux for the longest time – what Level to hunt, what to build, which survivors to take along, but this is what I ultimately ended on:

First things first, we gained 7 endeavors (4 survivors, 1 Tinker, Cooking (I) & 15 pop), and drew our random event for the Lantern Year:
Stranger in the Dark is technically a great draw if I didn’t roll so many Lamplighter encounters – speaking of which: I rolled just that – a 6.
At first I wasn’t sure who to send, but ended up picking Flare .. who lost a STR to the ominous creature.

But that wasn’t all for this Lantern Year – the Hooded Knight came back around for another visit and this time they trained us only very lightly (we got the option to spend resources for Mighty Strike FA) and I think they might have given up on us at this point.

And finally Murder: either Stalker murders Candy or Ys murders Stalker.
Neither option was looking like a great choice, but I chose Ys to be the culprit and kept our Wanderer Candy safe.
Stalker turned out to be a hide for us and in a surprising turn of events Ys came back from the darkness with an Iron in hand and I could not complain about that!

Moving on to develop we had a couple of options as to what to build.
At first, after looking at all the options I had, I built the Elastomer Hands (all 3 missing pieces needed 2 Elastomer each, so we were only getting 1 piece this year) and the Dragon Armor Torso.
With 1 more bone we would have been able to also make the Dragonskull Helm … so I fed the Cyclops Fly to Ys (she had Binge-Eating D) on a whim, and she melted into a Monster Bone – task failed successfully!

And then I stopped for a moment – of course, having 3 parts of each the Dragon and Black&Red set wouldn’t be ideal either, especially as I was using both to fill in for missing parts of the other.
So I reconsidered a bit.

Whilst we needed the Iron for the Dragon Armor set as well, I could alternatively build a 2nd Piercing Claw instead of the chest piece and improve our unga-bunga.
This in turn left me with a Horn Fragment and the Hardened Ribs, the latter going into storage and the horn was turned into a Monster Tooth Necklace to help with our ongoing STR issues.

As for innovating, we got to pick between Bloodletting, Family, Heart Flute and Bed this Lantern Year.
In a non-Pariah campaign this would have been a very easy pick: Family all the way, I think.
I did however not get dissuaded by my forbidden knowledge and still ended up picking it, which in turn added Clan of Death to the ridiculously thicc innovation deck.

Left with 3 more hide and a scrap to go into storage, this campaign continued to be just flooded with hide.

With the remaining 5 endeavors, I tried to prepare the next line up of departing survivors a little:
Sapphire successfully danced the Forbidden Dance (I) for +1EVA and learned Agility Fighter (FA) from our Sculpture (I) (3 endeavors in total).
1 more was used for Augury – which got us an Intimacy event(6&7 – I picked the 7). Emerald and Lucky were the parents and got their survival maxed (8), whilst the boy was called Star (*shrugs*)
The final endeavor was also used to augur, gaining Sapphire +1 understanding at the cost of one of our many, many hides.

The Hunters:
Sapphire – green (Frogdog Armor, Sharpened Heel)
Frogdos – blue (Black&Red bits, Hyperelastic Sword)
Lucky – red (Leather Armor, Piercing Claws x2)
Copperhead – yellow (Screaming Armor, Bone Club)

I spent a lot of time counting out our potential STR-level compared to various enemies, and to my surprise, the team suddenly felt a lot stronger. We might not actually be too far off from hunting Lvl3 Frogdogs when the Mammoth Leaf terrain is taken into account.
At this stage however, we’d do well in completing the Dragon Armor first.

A Lvl2 Dragon King will typically pump out a lot more damage compared to level 1 as all Irradiate triggers hit 2 spots instead of 1 and the trap also scales with Monster Level.
So, as the team leaves the settlement we think back to the old adage:
Unga-bunga protects!

The Huntphase:
Seemingly adept at the process already, Frogdos vanished into the Red Cloak again and by the time he reappeared he had 4 Black Resin and 1 Red Thread in his possession.
Noodling afterwards seemed about as compliant as it usually was at first but to my surprise Sapphire resurfaced with a copper – (against a Lvl2 I wasn’t going to risk going any deeper).
And Mineral Gathering also netted us a quick Iron, but the Bone Pickaxe snapped off under the strain.

After such a successful round of gathering I felt a little more uneasy as I had a round of lope-flashbacks, but I steadied myself and pushed on!
The first actual point of interest we came across was a beautiful Cultivated Crypt. Adding a token to the Dragon King fight for some extra resources, especially with having 2 Piercing Claws now (which can remove tokens from monsters if they hit 3+ times in a single attack) seemed like an overall easy choice, but the Overheat mood being up first was a little more threatening. Still, I took 2 resources and a lingering feeling of dread.
Moving on the group was headed into a desolate area and towards a guaranteed Famine (basic HE04), but the survivors managed to divert onto a different path altogether and ended up at a fountain filled with Clean Water (basic HE23). They drank deeply and moved on feeling refreshed, glad to not have taken the other path.
As Lucky took the lead we were soon covered by a Majestic Shadow from above – and he ran for the hills!
Only after the group stopped again, Lucky noticed the dead survivors littering the ground around them – this must have been a place of a Failed Start (basic HE92). He solemnly took one of the loose Founding Stones before we left.
As soon as Sapphire took the lead we were surprised by an old Lorekeeper. She whispered forgotten secrets to our Mere Navi and triggered an ancient Insight (+3 ins/surv) in our spiritual guide.
At this point the group had been wandering the darkness for a while and it would not take long before the found the barrier of Overwhelming Darkness, but just before the reached it, they spotted a Corpse (basic HE02) preserved perfectly. After looting yet another Monster Hide the pitch black closed in around them.

Frogdos (PTSD) and Lucky (-1EVA) were forced to take the Path of the Doomed, whilst Copperhead (1DMG to all) and Sapphire (PTSD) walked the Path of the Insane. The results weren’t great but all in all manageable.
Emerging on the other side of the relentless dark, the group stumbled into some old Settlement Ruins! Sapphire not only triggered Bold (+1 understanding) but also also found somebody still alive underneath the rubble!
I named the young woman Hollow for no particular reason and sent her back home towards the Bloody Shallows.

With the Feline Entity close by, dwarfing even the Dragon King my survivors ready up for the fight, encircled the titanic monster. I set up Lucky specifically so he could to dash/surge to hopefully remove the extra +1DMG immediately at the start of the fight.

As for our tactics card we drew Launch Formation, which could potentially void the trap once .. with a load of set-up we probably won’t have the time for.

For Lvl2 the Dragon King does not gain any new traits. It just has slightly higher stats at 15TGH and its deck features a single L card as well.
Besides that its just more AI cards and +1SPD/DMG.
Which, looking at the changes towards the Lvl3 version as well, besides the increase in damage output for Irradiate, I would say the overall difficulty increase between levels for the Dragon King seems to be of a more linear nature than with other monsters.

16 (17) cards in the deck, the Dragon King stomps down as it acknowledged our presence – Crisis Crater – with a follow up basic attack. The random target for which would end up being Frogdos, but before the monster could as much as move, Lucky was already dashing in and surging to attack!
With 2 Piercing Claws he had a mighty 4SPD – which might also end badly at some point – but if he managed to hit at least 3 times he was allowed to remove a token from the monster before any Hit Locations got drawn – and he hit it 4 times! With the +1DMG-toke gone, just like that, he had managed to deal 2 wounds before he got evacuated by the Dragon King’s Reflex. It did cost 2 more survival to not get chomped hard, but overall it felt like a worthwhile attack – my plan had worked out!
As the Dragon King finally got it’s chance to hit Frogdos, he used the -1ACC token he got in the Elastomer mines to negate 1 hit before dashing out of the Irradiate as it happened twice back to back.

Copperhead was the one to start our turn proper. She used her armor to Slam into the monster’s backside, dealing 2 wounds – clean and mostly uneventful as the Dragon King moved away from her, leaving behind 2 Lava Pools.

Next up to activate was Frogdos, who found 1 hit for 1 wound, before Sapphire crit the monster in the Serpent Talon for 2 more wounds thanks to savage!
Her failed follow-up-hit however threw both Frogdos and her into the lava that had leaked from the monster!
We didn’t have any flammable gear on us, so luckily this tumble left only slight burn marks.

9 (10) cards left -2TGH on the monster. We had managed to deal quite a bit of damage during this first turn of ours, but could we keep this up?
Glowing Fist was a terrifying mood to draw, adding +1DMG for each -1TGH-token on the monster at any given time, and its followed up .. by a 2nd Crisis Crater? There are 2 of that card?
The stomp, again, hit nobody. And the basic targeted Copperhead. With Glowing Fist in play the monster would hit for 5DMG, so she dashed away in paths directed by the Feline Entity. This drew the Dragon King away from Frogdos and Sapphire in a win/win for the team as well.
The already imminent Meltdown was looking scary though.

I didn’t trust the developing situation and had Sapphire dash out of facing, as I spent Frogdos’ turn moving and bandaging the mounting bleed away.
With Lucky left in the fringes of the map, Copperhead still felt brazen enough to use Slam anyhow to close the distance to the Dragon King and she hit .. Engulf in Light – there it was!
CRITICALITY!

Lucky hit the floor again as the muscles in his arm were literally being cooked. At least both moods had been discarded this way.
Before our turn ended, Sapphire tried to attack, but the stare down she received left her forever changed (Binge Eating D).

10 cards left, the Dragon King drew Gnash.
Frogdos was the only survivor with any extra STR, so he was the target yet again. The monster landed 3 hits, so I was unable to prevent the token getting applied.

Copperhead Slammed into the monster again, but she failed to deal any wounds, triggering an Irradiate as well to make things worse. The Meltdown-timer had officially been restarted!
Frogdos failed to hit outright and backed off.
And as Lucky started to move back towards the group. I debated just throwing the Founding Stone. It felt bad to do – especially with the Hit Location deck thinning out more and more. But the what-ifs kept me hanging on. We didn’t have any means of scouting either, so.. about 5 minutes later I just threw the damn rock and got rewarded for being stupid again: it hit the Serpent Wing for a Lava Pool and an additional Husk.
Probably not the best overall choice.

9 cards remaining, -1TGH, a Nuclear Blast erupted from the monster’s chest cavity towards Copperhead. Aware of the danger she dashed out of the Blast Zone.

Sapphire did a quick check on the range of her armor’s effect, but she still had to walk up to the monster anyhow. The Sharpened Heel barely missed the Serpent Throat, but it still managed to critically wound once on the thigh, for +1ACC and another 2 wounds from savage.
Copperhead continued making liberal use of Slam, and she dealt 1 wound in exchange for 4 damage to her chest – ouch!
Frogdos only used his Bandages again this turn, before he and Lucky just repositioned.

6 cards remaining, -2TGH on the monster, it had begun actually starting to Overheat again, as the mood was put back into play!
The Hit Location deck was getting really thin now – we were down to 6 cards and the trap was still missing!
At this point, I had actually started considering to make use of the tactics card.

After another dose of radiation I knew I needed to get Copperhead out of to combat zone, so she backed off smashing the Obsidian Pillar that had formed closest to her for an Iron.
Lucky then took the risk of activating the trap. He ran in, hit 3 times, taking off a -1TGH-token, but still no trap!
2 wounds later, Irradiate knocked him down again and still reached Copperhead. He also suffered a severe leg injury which took away his ability to dash for the rest of the fight – a frightening proposition!

With both monster decks thinning, Sapphire felt like the best choice left to take the trap. She ran over and the Sharpened Heel only hit once! Activating the weapon’s ability she took a bleed and dealt a critical wound, which to be fair was an arguably better outcome.
Still able to surge she made an attempt for the extra attack but this time she missed all hits.

1 (2) cards left in the deck, -4TGH-tokens on the monster, the final card in the deck is .. Glowing Fist. The random threat chosen for the follow up basic attack would be Frogdos, which then gave Sapphire a chance to surge.
1 attack to either cause a Meltdown and reset us slightly, or to kill the monster!
And just as I rolled my dice I realized I had miscalculated – Frogdos would be hit by the resulting Meltdown as well – I thought he’d be able to still dash .. but its the trap, so that was out of the picture.
Sapphire on the other hand continued to be reliable and she kept the dream alive as she hit the monster exactly once; confirming the trap to be the bottom card of the deck! The monster was at 11TGH, and she at 3+2STR.. which gave us a 6+ to kill, 4+ with the ability.
And she rolled a 6 exactly!

As the hulking monster collapsed the tension I felt over those last couple of turns dropped off.
For how drawn out the fight was in between our team’s outbursts of damage, we got decently lucky overall, especially with the hit locations we drew. On the other hand we managed to get just enough damage in to not enter the danger zone in which each Irradiate triggered several severe injuries every time – which we weren’t that far off of.

Almost every one aged from this fight: Lucky (+1ACC), Sapphire (+1ACC) and Copperhead (Feral Strength FA) all reached age 1, and everyone got their Weapon Proficiency point as well.
Between a bunch of critical wounds and decent to great outcomes for the various gathering events, this was a gigantic haul that would have been devastating to not get!
Because of Sculpture (I) we did also gain a Radiant Heart .. which killed Copperhead.

We should be able to finish both work-in-progress armor sets with this – and we even have the makings of a nuclear weapon if we wanted it as well.
Maybe that is something to look forward to.

***

Next Lantern Year, as we start the potential 2nd half of the campaign, we will have to square up against the Pariah Lvl2 encounter and I have no idea how that is going to go. The Level 2 fight does not feel nearly as stacked against the player as the level 1, but the Fiend’s inherent abilities are still a doozy to contend with.
I will probably take Candy along for this fight as she feels like our single strongest piece of leverage we currently have (in form of a single survivor, that is), but we will have to hope that the Pariah doesn’t just blindly go off on her for being female.

Hopefully, by next time, we will also know a little more about the Screaming God and the Parasite Queen, but, if nothing else, we’ll have had another monthly sale/update at the very least.
I’d still love to get a really stupid Lion God IR. But that’s just me, I guess.
And, yes, I know, we are unlikely to get any single White Box IRs for monsters without any yet, besides maybe Sunstalker, because most of them will likely get tweaked a lot with CoD and it would be better to wait until after. *sighs*

As always, thank you very much for your time, lagomorph-time is around the corner as well! The bunny-witch cometh (probably at the end of April)! She trades your underwear in for fucked-up-little-bunny-people!
Amathul